Remythologizing Theology: Divine Action, Passion, and Authorship

by Kevin J. Vanhoozer

• ISBN13: 9780521470124
• ISBN10: 0521470129
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-03-08
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

The rise of modern science and the proclaimed 'death' of God in the nineteenth century led to a radical questioning of divine action and authorship - Bultmann's celebrated 'demythologizing'. Remythologizing Theology moves in another direction that begins by taking seriously the biblical accounts of God's speaking. It establishes divine communicative action as the formal and material principle of theology, and suggests that interpersonal dialogue, rather than impersonal causality, is the keystone of God's relationship with the world. This original contribution to the theology of divine action and authorship develops a new vision of Christian theism. It also revisits several long-standing controversies such as the relations of God's sovereignty to human freedom, time to eternity, and suffering to love. Groundbreaking and thought-provoking, it brings theology into fruitful dialogue with philosophy, literary theory, and biblical studies.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. xii
Introduction: What is remythologizing?	p. 1
A perennial problem: myth, mythos, and metaphysics	p. 3
A modern solution: demythologizing	p. 13
"Soft" vs. "hard" demythologizing: Feuerbachian slips	p. 17
An alternative approach: remythologizing	p. 23
The argument: a brief summary	p. 30
"God" in Scripture and theology	p. 33
Biblical representation (Vorstellung): divine communicative action and passion	p. 35
A gallery of canonical exhibits	p. 36
A miscellany of theological issues	p. 57
Theological conceptualization (Begriff): varieties of theism and panentheism	p. 81
On the very idea of a "classical" theism	p. 82
The critique of ontotheology: why are they saying such awful things about perfect being?	p. 93
The recovery of Trinitarian theology	p. 105
The relational turn	p. 112
The panentheist gambit: children of a greater God	p. 124
The new kenotic-perichoretic relational ontotheology: some "classical" concerns	p. 139
Persons and/as relations	p. 140
Perichoresis and/as relationality	p. 149
Passion and/as relatedness	p. 162
Passing over/out of Egypt: remythologizing the God-world relation	p. 174
Communicative theism and the triune God	p. 179
God's being is in communicating	p. 181
The being of God: a who or what question?	p. 183
Thinking biblically; interpreting theologically	p. 187
The analogy of being-in-act: towards a post-Barthian Thomism	p. 198
Being-in-communicative-act: elements of a theodramatic metaphysic	p. 222
God in three persons: the one who lights and lives in love	p. 241
Father, Son, and Spirit: communicative agents in immanent relation	p. 244
What God communicates: triune "ways" into the far country	p. 259
A "simple" schema: shapes of triune communicative action	p. 271
Communicating triune life: remythologizing "participation in God"	p. 279
God and World: authorial action and interaction	p. 295
Divine author and human hero in dialogical relation	p. 297
Theistic authorship: unpacking the analogy	p. 302
Authoring humanity: the God-world relation as divine dialogue	p. 316
Divine communicative sovereignty and human freedom: the hero talks back	p. 338
His dark materials: does God author evil?	p. 338
Exploring the powers: the poetics of biblical discourse	p. 346
God's authorial Word enters in	p. 356
Triune dialogics: prayer and providence	p. 366
Impassible passion? Suffering, emotions, and the crucified God	p. 387
Does God suffer? A theological litmus test	p. 388
Motions and emotions: can humans move God?	p. 398
The "voice" of the crucified God: active or passive?	p. 416
Impassible compassion? From divine pathos to divine patience	p. 434
Divine pathos: suffering love	p. 436
Divine promise: lordly love	p. 441
Divine patience: enduring love	p. 448
Conclusion: Always remythologizing? Answering to the Holy Author in our midst	p. 469
Mythos revisited: between mystery and metaphysics	p. 471
Biblical reasoning: the formal principle of divine communicative action	p. 475
Triune authorship: the material principle of divine communicative action	p. 486
Select bibliography	p. 505
Index of subjects	p. 523
Index of scriptural reference	p. 533
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